Shall We Give It a Try?
Kwon Du-il’s face made the decision easy.
“If you’re going, hyung-nim, I’m coming with you.”
“What?”
“You have to take me, right? There’s no other manager who works as well as I do, y’know?”
“Going? Who said anything about going…”
“You still haven’t renewed the contract, have you?”
The plan had been to finish filming this one-act drama, re-sign the contract, and release the official announcement. But when Kwon Du-il suddenly asked for time to think it over, the president kept pressing to know what the problem was. The situation had grown awkward.
Kwon Du-il, who knew all this, avoided his eyes.
“I’ve got eyes too, y’know. I can see Su-a’s going to become an incredible actress.”
“She already is incredible.”
“Aigoo, come on! No matter how incredible she is, what’s the use if the public doesn’t know? In this industry, even overflowing talent gets buried without luck. And isn’t that exactly why you want to become that kid’s good fortune, hyung-nim?”
“……”
“So I was thinking I’d like to get in on that spoon too. Oh, and Ye-seon and Min-jun as well.”
“Those two?”
Kwon Du-il looked surprised when the names of the stylist and the road manager who sometimes drove in Lee Won-seok’s place came up.
Lee Won-seok made a V with his fingers and rested it under his chin.
“I dropped them a little hint because I figured it might come to this, and they said they wanted in right away. Your personal luck is really something, hyung-nim. Of course, my personal luck is the best of all.”
“That…”
“…Correction. My personal luck is sister-in-law! I’m second place!”
Lee Won-seok clinked his soju glass against a cider glass with a playful grin. Kwon Du-il burst out laughing too. The whole thing had moved forward before he even made up his mind, which felt absurd, but his heart felt lighter.
He didn’t want to disappoint the people who trusted him enough to follow.
“All right. Then… shall we give it a try?”
“Sounds good. But you know the most important thing is what Su-a wants, right?”
“Of course. Persuasion is my specialty.”
Now that his mood had lifted, the alcohol was hitting him; Kwon Du-il beamed with a silly smile. Lee Won-seok subtly looked away.
Well… I’m not sure it’s persuasion so much as intimidation.
Manager Lee Won-seok had called my mom. He asked if she could spare a moment to meet Kwon Du-il together with me.
So Mom and I ended up visiting Kwon Du-il’s house.
“He lives in a really nice apartment building…”
The place Lee Won-seok had dropped us off was a high-rise apartment complex.
Pretending not to hear Mom’s muttered comment, Lee Won-seok personally escorted us all the way to Kwon Du-il’s door.
“Hyung-nim, sister-in-law! I’ve brought the guests!”
We followed Lee Won-seok, who had opened the front door himself, and three massive figures greeted us at the inner door.
“Come in, come in! Thank you for coming, Su-a.”
One was Kwon Du-il, smiling brightly. The other two were…
“H-honey! You never told me she was this tiny and adorable!”
“She’s really friends with me?”
Kwon Du-il’s wife, Ji Su-bin, and their son, Kwon Jin-ho, had frozen up exactly like Kwon Du-il the first time he saw me.
Seeing their reaction brought back the exact thought I’d had the first time I met Kwon Du-il’s family before the regression.
Are we even the same species?
I was twelve now—two years older than Jin-ho—but I had only just caught up to average height for my age. Still, standing in front of Kwon Du-il who easily cleared 190 centimeters, Ji Su-bin at 178, and the son born between them, I was hopelessly small.
The funny thing was, they were clearly thinking the same thing about me.
“Are you sick somewhere?”
Ji Su-bin fled to the kitchen saying she’d prepare the meal, and Kwon Du-il followed to help her.
The rest of us sat at the dining table and waited. Kwon Jin-ho asked with a serious face.
“So you can’t eat properly?”
“No. I eat well.”
“Then why are you so small?”
“Do you go around asking all the kids at school who are smaller than you the same thing?”
“Yeah! But nobody really answers me…”
That was probably because no matter how gentle his personality or expression, he looked exactly like Kwon Du-il, so they thought he was picking a fight. It was a relief he hadn’t been misunderstood as a bully.
I turned to Lee Won-seok, who was watching us with nervous eyes.
“Is this kid really ten? Not fourteen?”
“Hey! I’m ten, okay?!”
Kwon Jin-ho protested, his face flushing red and then pale. So he already had a complex about looking older.
I answered lightly.
“Really? You’re so much bigger than me I thought you weren’t. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
“Adults sometimes… Wait, do I really look that old?”
“It’s not that you look old. You look mature. That’s a good thing.”
“Really?”
Seeing Kwon Jin-ho’s eyes sparkle with delight reminded me of the despair on his face right before the accident. I wouldn’t have to see that expression this time.
While I kept chatting as if nothing was wrong, Kwon Du-il and his wife soon brought out the side dishes. The large table filled up in no time.
Mom, who had been smiling quietly, suddenly looked shaken.
“Um, Actor Kwon Du-il?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Isn’t… there a bit too much food?”
“Hahaha, with six people eating, this much is only proper!”
While Kwon Du-il confidently declared there was no problem, Lee Won-seok whispered with an enlightened expression.
“Even if it looks like that, he knows how much normal people eat, so don’t worry. He prepared extra because he’s happy you and Su-a came. And with those two here, there won’t be any food left over.”
But he soon had to stop Ji Su-bin from piling a mountain of rice into my bowl.
“Why! The child is nothing but bones. She needs to eat until she’s full!”
“Will you burst the kid’s stomach?! Sister-in-law, your standard rice bowl is a normal person’s soup bowl. Let me put some back.”
“Won-seok… that’s a side-dish bowl.”
“What? What are you talking about, hyung-nim? With this cute design and size, it’s clearly a child’s rice bowl, isn’t it?”
“It’s the baby food bowl Jin-ho used when he was little. We use it for side dishes now.”
Lee Won-seok stared doubtfully at the bowl that was clearly for seven- or eight-year-olds, then set it down.
No. Don’t give up.
It was fine to leave rice, but it looked better to serve a proper amount and finish it.
Keep fighting, mister.
Fortunately, Lee Won-seok didn’t give up. He snatched the rice paddle from Ji Su-bin’s hand, left only a third in the bowl, and returned the rest to the rice cooker.
He carried the bowls for me, Mom, and himself back to the table with a triumphant stride.
I let out a relieved breath and gave him a thumbs-up.
“I wanted to prepare even more, but Won-seok stopped me. I hope you enjoy the meal.”
“Thank you. There’s already plenty, and everything looks delicious. I’ll eat well.”
“I’ll eat well.”
“Let’s eat well!”
After Ji Su-bin and Mom exchanged shy words, the meal began. I savored each of the more than ten side dishes, the braised ribs, japchae, and the beef radish soup one by one.
It was a nostalgic taste. This whole situation too.
Before the regression, we had only gathered like this twice. Once when I joined Kwon Du-il’s agency. The other time was at Mom’s funeral.
“Su-a, try this. It’s really good.”
“What’s your favorite side dish, Su-a? Auntie will pack some for you later.”
Watching Mom put japchae on my rice and Ji Su-bin smiling warmly, I smiled too.
“Everything’s so delicious I want to take it all! But then there wouldn’t be any left for Auntie, Uncle, and Jin-ho, so I’m okay.”
This time, I’d make sure we gathered more often.
“This is rigged!”
Oh Na-yun flopped to the ground and pounded the floor. Raw egg streamed down her head while the other members surrounded her, roaring with laughter.
It was obvious at a glance who had drawn the penalty.
“Today’s the day, Na-yun! The god of variety shows has arrived!”
“This isn’t bad luck, it’s good luck. How do you pull it three times in a row?”
“I’m jealous, so jealous!”
“Jealous of what?!”
Even as she complained through near-tears, Oh Na-yun secretly agreed with her members.
Out of a whole tray of boiled eggs, she had drawn the single raw one three times straight!
And in the third round she had gone first. She had truly hit a one-in-thirty chance.
But when she thought about the penalty, she couldn’t exactly celebrate.
“I don’t want to do a bungee jump!”
It wasn’t just the bungee jump she hated. Clearing her schedule and traveling all the way to Gangwon Province just for one jump was even worse.
But the cruel members and wicked production staff ignored Oh Na-yun’s screams completely.
“Come on, Na-yun. Just accept it.”
“Yeah. What can you do when the variety god has spoken? It’s your fate~”
Oh Na-yun shot the grinning members a half-hearted glare and trudged to her feet. She had gotten enough footage out of her reaction. It was time to focus on filming.
Then the most annoying PD in the world made her an offer.
“Today’s concept is ‘Luck Boom or Bust Game,’ right? Getting hit with three penalties in a row could also count as incredible luck, couldn’t it?”
“Yes!!”
“Pfft, look at Na-yun’s desperate voice.”
“So we prepared a special mission just for this kind of situation.”
In short, if she drew a mission slip from the round container and completed whatever was written on it, they would cancel the penalty.
The other members jokingly argued about whether it was a special privilege or not, but Oh Na-yun jumped up and down and accepted immediately. With trembling hands she drew a mission slip from the container the writer held out.
“Phone quiz with the youngest person in your contacts…”